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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Schools Matter: A Lesson In Thinking About Education

Schools Matter: A Lesson In Thinking About Education:


A Lesson In Thinking About Education

I imagine too few of us know well Mill's On Liberty.  Let me press you to read it at the first opportunity, no, make an opportunity to read it now.  (There is a good audio version available as well.)

What is this essay about but the education of the human species and the role of social management in that education?

I hope you can at least find the time to bear with this excerpt as it seems to me most pertinent for this audience of readers and bloggers.  I am not comfortable with much of what Mill proposes, but there is no one better at convincing you that the propositions are well-considered and just.  In other words, it is hard to argue against Mill.  I would love for there to be a discussion about this.

I'll follow this excerpt with a portion from Chapter 5 of Huck Finn.

On Liberty was published in 1859 and Huck was published in 1885.  Where are we now?

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This is from Chapter V: Applications.


I have already observed that, owing to the absence of any recognised general principles, liberty is often granted where it should be withheld, as well as withheld where it should be granted; and one of the cases in which, in the modern European world, the sentiment of liberty is the strongest, is a case where, in my view, it is altogether misplaced. A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as